BLACK OMEGA
by Neil Davies
Summary: A crashed UFO attracts the interest of Britain's elite military retrieval team and their enigmatic leader, but have they and he met their match?


BLACK OMEGA 

Forming a perfect horizontal line the four black dots crested the horizon and began to lose height as they sank down over the misty marshland of the Norfolk Broads. Due to the thick, swirling vapour it was impossible to see the ground with vision along, so other means were being used. The tar black stealth machines made no noise as they swooped like vultures over their destination.

In the cockpit of the lead craft anxious eyes studied a complex computer display that was a rainbow circle of thermal colours. Nobody spoke as there was nothing to say, APEX was picking up ground formations, water, vapour and vegetation – none of it exceptional for this area or the time of year.

Then to the left of the images something else appeared, it was dark blue and jagged, its skin heavily dented and torn and around it was a livid aura of blood red forming a kind of egg-shape. The APEX technician Reed nodded in satisfaction, his equipment had done its job just as he had promised.

Looking up at the CO, Reed awaited the man's praise it did not come. Costigan was not given to thanking men or machines for just doing their jobs, "Where can we put down?" He asked the pilot, Sanderson.

"Not here sir, we'd sink in all that slime and mud."

Annoyed Costigan chewed on a lower lip, "Find me somewhere stable as close to the crash site as you can."

"Maybe I can help," said Reed letting his petulance show a little. "According to APEX the ground slants upwards and calcifies about half a mile North West of here."

Half a mile was a long way for men to march on foot with almost zero visibility on the ground.

"Are you sure the turf would hold the weight of this chopper," Costigan demanded?

"My data suggests it would," The lieutenant replied.

"I think I'd prefer a more reassuring scenario than bright lights on a TV screen, Sanderson take us down to twenty-five meters and prepare the winch, tell the other choppers to do the same, I'm not going to risk getting stuck out here with no hope of retrieval."

Moving into the back section of the machine Costigan stared down at his waiting, anxious, helmeted troops. Like him they were attired all in black with thick body-armour and visors that could be drawn to mask their faces. On the collars and chests of each man with the number 8 lying on its side to form the Greek letter _omega_.

"We're going to winch down," he told them. "Get into descent formation and check your weapons, the bogey has been confirmed so from now on we're on red one status."

The waiting was over they had found it he could feel the same excitement from them that he also felt, touching his helmet communication system he said.

"This is omega leader to base, contact is confirmed we are going in and from now on will observe full radio silence."

Five minutes later a thick oblong platform sank from the belly of the lead chopper and on it stood a squad of armed men who looked more like robots, in the centre of them was a very tall man and there was about him an unnatural calm even as he entered the thick fog to face unknown dangers and mysteries.

As the platform hit the ground with a squelch the troops departed it, their boots sinking into the filth almost up to the knees and groans could be heard from all.

"Keep in formation," Costigan barked. "We are now onsite and full tactical drill applies, select your partners and stick with them, I will lead."

Touching his helmet the CO spoke into it as he addressed the chopper, "Down and safe, I require directions."

The voice of Reed responded and there was a vinegary taste to it, "Head east by north east on a vector of 347.2."

Taking a small hand-held device from his belt and activating it Costigan swung one way then the other until the lines on his screen matched the vector given. "Roger that," he said. "Right move out," he told his team knowing that not far away other winches would be discharging units two, three and four as back-up. As they didn't know what they were going to find Omega took no chances, better to have too many men than too few, that mistake had been made in the past with disastrous results well not on his watch.

It was hard going squelching through the mud, clay and sand and Costigan was glad he was fit, you probably needed to be out here in this inhospitable wasteland, what a place to crash land. "No talking," he told his men able to hear their helmet chatter and feel their nerves, each was coiled as tightly as a spring and he was himself, this was a scary job much worse than normal combat and Omega recruited a certain type of man to do it.

I can't see a bloody thing, he thought as he squinted through the mist then a scream cut into his right ear and looking back he gave an oath. Some fool had fallen into a bog and was sinking fast, one of his mates attached a line and three others pulled the man clear.

"Stay alert," Costigan barked. "Are you okay soldier?"

The man nodded, he was scared but physically unhurt. Costigan said, "This area is littered with quagmires so move quickly but carefully, if in doubt go around it." He set off once more aware of how deeply his legs were going into the mud and how much it was slowing him down, thank God he hadn't risk a half mile trek under these conditions.

"Omega leader to chopper one, how much further?"

Reed responded, "Two hundred yards sir."

"I can't see anything, visibility is almost non-existent." But that wasn't entirely true, he could see something in the mist a kind of soft red glow. "Hang on there's a light down here, a crimson radiation about a dozen yards ahead."

Coming to a halt Costigan pointed at the glow and his men could clearly see it to, he had no idea what it was but he recalled the aura around the bogey that showed up on APEX, now he was seeing it again but what could it be, and how dangerous was it?

"Smith, take a radiation reading."

A corporal came forwards, he had a Geiger Counter attached to his left forearm and when he waved this at the glow it began to first purr then snarl.

"More than two hundred rads sir."

Two hundred was high but endurable inside their suits, at least in the short-term. "We'll proceed," Costigan said and moved into the glow himself.

At once his skin began to itch all over as though a swarm of ants had invaded his suit, it was a most unpleasant and irritating sensation because it was in the roots of his hair and behind his eyes to, his eyes began to water and he suddenly needed the toilet.

"Can you feel it to," he asked Webb his second in command?

"Feels like I'm being cooked from the inside sir, I don't like it."

"Recommendation?"

"Get the fuck out of here," Webb said but he didn't mean it and they both knew it.

"If only," Costigan responded with a dry chuckle then he walked on ahead. The itching got worse soon it was inside his bones and joints, and his running eyes were joined by bunged up sinuses and ears. He needed a pee desperately and his legs felt three times heavier than normal. He couldn't tell if that was the glow or the mud or both.

"Up to three hundred rads now sir," said Smith comfortingly. "That's well into the danger zone."

Knowing it only too well Costigan had a tactical decision to make, proceed to the bogey and risk radiation poisoning or bail out and incur the wrath of his boss and he knew what the Major would say.

"This is leader to units two, three and four stay back, I repeat stay out of the radiation field there's no point risking all our lives."

He looked at his men and felt their fear, their hesitation. Yes I'm putting your lives on the line and my own and I'm bloody sorry but we've got a job to do, this is what we signed up for and why they pay us so much.

Even so Costigan had to make himself move forwards through the light and vapour, it took every ounce of will power and discipline he had developed over nine years of being in the army, two with Omega.

"I think I can see something," Webb was by his side panting and twitching with discomfort. "Ahead and to the right, isn't that a bulk?"

Costigan had to adjust his visor scope but Webb was right there was a shape looming up out of the slime some kind of cone.

"This is it," he told his men then to the chopper. "Visual contact established, I am moving in now to make a preliminary assessment."

But as he neared the cone Costigan felt a great urge to keep away from it, to avoid it and retreat. When he overrode the part of his mind giving that instruction he felt dizzy, the itching in his bones deepened and began to feel more like needles jutting into the marrow.

"Are you all right sir," asked Webb?

"Not really, the nearer I get to the bogey the worse these sensations in my body get."

"Why not let me lead the team in?"

A generous offer but no thought Costigan, I am the team leader it's my responsibility. Teeth clenched he forced himself to approach the downed ship step by agonizing step, yard by yard.

Then suddenly he was okay, the unease, dizziness and itching where instantly gone, as though he'd past some kind of test or gone through a barrier to a safer zone. Strange he mused, was it psychological or something given off by the wreck? The cone was very tall but clearly much of it had sunk into the mud, it was attached to a large ring that had clearly been the outer part of the ship, another cone was visible to his left. Within the ring was a large oval split open down one side, a cream-coloured mass heavily ridged or frosted.

"Queer looking thing," one man said. "I wonder if there's anything alive in there?"

Costigan snapped, "It's our job to find out." Then he said, "Spread out and encircle the craft, I want a global view of it, what's the rad count?"

Smith frowned, "Zero sir, I'm not picking up anything at all."

Costigan couldn't believe it radiation didn't just disappear. Ordering Smith to check for a fault he moved up to the cone and extended a hand, wondering what it was made of because it didn't seem to be forged metal. "This looks more like coral, what do you think Webb?"

"Crystalline I'd say, and look sir how it's giving off moisture almost like sweat or tears."

"There's a soft noise to," said the commander. "A low note that I can just about detect, it's not unpleasant just rather mournful. Maybe you're right about tears."

Moving around the cone to get another angle Costigan noticed something else carved into it, they were complex designs or symbols not unlike pictograms and some of them were stick men that reminded him uncomfortably of himself and his squad because they wore helmets with visors.

"Look at these," he told Webb. "Begin video recording and upload it to the chopper for relay back to base, the boffins need to see this maybe they can make sense of it."

Around on the far side of the cone Costigan came to a dead halt, his mouth dried up totally and something like a fist tightened low down in his gut. He almost reeled back in shock no it wasn't possible he must be dreaming.

Smith caught him by the elbow with a quizzical look, but Costigan tore free.

"I'm fine," he snarled but he wasn't he was badly shocked, who wouldn't be to see their own name written on the hull of an extraterrestrial spacecraft?

Then Reed's voice crackled into his ear, "Sir there's a build up of power from the bogey on the theta and lambda frequencies, it started just a few seconds ago. We're picking up pulsing waves of energy from the central mass."

That was the oval centre and as he looked at it the omega leader saw a soft pulsation of light. Withdraw or penetrate? A cautious, careful man would have chosen the former but Costiganhadn't been recruited by this mob because he played it safe.

"I'm going in – Smith, Harris and Logan you're with me – the rest of you stay alert." He turned to Webb and put him in charge of the unit, "Give me thirty minutes if I'm not out by then get the team out of here, no arguments or heroics."

Webb didn't like it but he'd been with the CO long enough not to bother arguing.

Backed up by his team of three the commander approached the biggest rent in the ship core, "Smith keep your Geiger Counter switched on at all times, the rest of you prepare arms." Checking his own weapon Costigan stepped right up to the hull breach thinking how much it resembled the jaws of a shark, and the jaws of death might be what he was going into.

Saying a silent prayer he took another step.

Suddenly he was no longer in a filthy Norfolk bog but a long luxuriously carpeted room with pastel green walls, soft pipe music in the background and the noise of water splashing softly. There were framed pictures on the walls but he couldn't see them clearly, as though the glass in the frames was misted over but he was sure they were paintings of faces not landscapes.

A large sofa dominated the centre of the room and orbiting it were half a dozen armchairs, to one side was a low six-sided wooden table balanced on a single central leg and on the table were crystal goblets filled with a russet coloured liquid – wine? Of all the things he had expected to find such as machinery, wreckage or bodies he had never guessed he would walk into something from the ideal home exhibition. Was he really inside a crashed alien spacecraft?

"Bloody hell," muttered Smith. "I must be dreaming sir."

Wondering that himself Costigan went up to the table and picked up a goblet, the liquid inside sloshed around and some of it went onto his gauntlet and sleeve soaking in. It all seemed real enough and he felt an urge to drink the wine, something that was hard to resist.

"They like to live in comfort whoever they are," said Smith. "This sofa feels like leather and the carpet is bouncy under my feet."

Noticing an inner door like a French window Costigan went over to this but again the glass was frosted so he couldn't see through it.

Suddenly he jerked back as a shadow past across the glass coming right up to it for a moment then flowing away, there was somebody alive in here!

"Look lively," He snarled at his men who were beginning to relax he could tell, two had removed their helmets and Smith was actually sipping wine with obvious enjoyment.

"Get over here now," their leader barked. He got an insolent look from Smith, who actually offered him the goblet.

"Take it easy chief, here have a drink it's on the house."

And he laughed, so did the others their discipline forgotten as they sank into a different mindset.

"We're here to do a job," Costigan told them but it seemed to cut little ice these men were no longer soldiers. "Smith put that down and give me a radiation reading." But the youngster defiantly took another drink and switched his Geiger Counter off. Infuriated the commander turned back to the frosted door fine he would handle this himself.

Someone was looking at him.

The blood freezing in his veins he backed away as a pair of large pale blue eyes peered at him curiously through the glass, they belonged to a long, tapered face and under the eyes lips softly curled into a playful smile.

He should have shouted a warning, used his helmet microphone to call the chopper or even raised his gun but he did none of these things because he found he couldn't act at all, at least not as he had been trained as an operative of Britain's elite UFO retrieval regiment.

The door did not open it didn't have to. The being on the other side of it just flowed through the glass to stand before Costigan and he looked at her in awe.

Yes – her, for this was clearly a female something that was patently obvious due to the fact that she was completely naked. Walking right up to him she easily plucked the weapon from his hands and laid it aside, he watched her do this and took no action to prevent it.

"What are you doing to me, why can't I stop you?" He asked. In response he received another smile and it held a world of mysteries, an ocean of magical possibility. Costigan knew he was lost in this ocean that he was floundering in its depths unable to swim or even float.

Coming right up to him the female caressed his cheek with a long, cool hand and it didn't seem to matter that she had eight fingers all superbly slim and delicate. Her skin was peach-coloured and smoother than anything he'd ever seen lacking blemish or sag so she hadn't given birth.

Behind him the other men were sat or lounging about apparently oblivious to all this, totally uncaring as their minds switched off somehow controlled by this alien as he was.

"Who," he began but the thought died in his mind it was so trivial and tasteless, so irrelevant? Names weren't important here only motives, so what where his?

"I am a soldier," he said. "A warrior sent by my government to examine and acquire all of this."

He shouldn't be telling her that, he was breaking dozens of rules yet somehow those rules didn't seem to apply here nothing rational did. "They also sent me to find any live specimens, to take them prisoner and isolate them in our facility under Salisbury Plain." More rules breached, even to admit that SP1 existed was a court martial offence.

"We have three entities there or we had, they died they always seem to die almost as if they lose the will to live on earth."

Caressing him again she let her fingers linger over his right temporal robe where they stroked his hair playfully, and she knew she just knew everything about him. He felt his life play out through skin and hair into her finger ends as though every memory he had from birth was being 'downloaded', a crazy idea but it persisted and in her eyes a new understanding dawned as she processed the life of Mark Costigan, every day, hour and minute. He was exposed to her laid bare with no secrets, no defences and no excuses.

It was too much.

NO!

He was on his knees in the mud with the mud rising up to his stomach, hands gripping his head, tears splashing onto his visor, a great hole in his mind where a record of his life had been expertly excised.

Webb squatted beside him full of concern, "Are you all right sir, what happened?"

They were outside the UFO by the cone and it didn't make any sense, he had gone inside to look around with three men, yet those men were around him now looking confused.

Webb said, "You just cried out and fell to the ground after seeing something on the back of the cone."

"My name," Costigan stammered. "I saw it there."

Smith went to look he came back shaking his head softly. But it had been there, it had!

"I was inside the ship and I met….her."

Webb frowned in puzzlement he clearly didn't know what the hell his superior was babbling about.

"We need to airlift him out of here it must be the radiation," what he didn't say was 'the poor sod has flipped out'. Well maybe I have Costigan was thinking it must have been an illusion. But the hole in his mind said otherwise it spoke of a deep and profound contact, and the fact that _they_ now knew all about him, knew and would act upon it.

"There's someone inside the UFO, a female."

Webb said, "It's sinking into the bog sir so we have to withdraw, if there is anything alive onboard it won't survive for much longer."

'And nor will you, you poor bastard'. The look added as Webb took charge.

"Okay men let's get out of here, double-quick."


End file.
